Am absolutely furious at the moment with the situation that's just revealed itself. We currently are renting a house out. Have been for years, current tenants in situ about 18 months.
We have a letting agent that we pay an annual fee to. Any problems regarding repairs and replacements needed in the house he refers to us for us to deal with if we have contacts or for us to okay him going to an outside contractor (who we would then pay).
Looked like last month's rent hadn't been paid. We don't have a separate property account though we should have. Contacted the agent a week after the rent was due. 2 days later we hear back, agent is abroad. Apparently tenant reported an issue with the heating but agent didn't act or tell us. So we took it that the tenant was holding rent (lodged directly to our account) until the issue was dealt with. Advised agent to contact tenants, stating that this was not acceptable and also to get details of the problem.
Another 3 days pass and it appears some money was paid. Over €500 less than the rent figure (which is why we didn't notice, were looking for the rent amount in the bank statement) because tenant went and got the heating issue fixed.
A couple of issues here
1 - agent should have acted on report from tenant. Everyone needs heat in December.
2 - unlikely heating repair would have cost tenant €500
3 - we have contacts in the heating business, if we'd known it was unlikely to have cost us anything to sort out the heating.
We've told agent that this is unacceptable and have asked for a receipt for repairs in the first place. We've also told the agent to advise the tenant that this line of action is not to happen again.
Haven't got the lease here but I'm pretty sure work on the heating is potential damage to the house, we don't know what kind of cowboy they got out - and thus probably in breach of their lease.
Bottom line is we're seriously out of pocket and probably going to have to get heating checked all over again to make sure it's not damaged.
Not sure it's worth breaking the lease for or the long standing relationship with the agent but at the same time I want to be strong on this. Any thoughts?
We have a letting agent that we pay an annual fee to. Any problems regarding repairs and replacements needed in the house he refers to us for us to deal with if we have contacts or for us to okay him going to an outside contractor (who we would then pay).
Looked like last month's rent hadn't been paid. We don't have a separate property account though we should have. Contacted the agent a week after the rent was due. 2 days later we hear back, agent is abroad. Apparently tenant reported an issue with the heating but agent didn't act or tell us. So we took it that the tenant was holding rent (lodged directly to our account) until the issue was dealt with. Advised agent to contact tenants, stating that this was not acceptable and also to get details of the problem.
Another 3 days pass and it appears some money was paid. Over €500 less than the rent figure (which is why we didn't notice, were looking for the rent amount in the bank statement) because tenant went and got the heating issue fixed.
A couple of issues here
1 - agent should have acted on report from tenant. Everyone needs heat in December.
2 - unlikely heating repair would have cost tenant €500
3 - we have contacts in the heating business, if we'd known it was unlikely to have cost us anything to sort out the heating.
We've told agent that this is unacceptable and have asked for a receipt for repairs in the first place. We've also told the agent to advise the tenant that this line of action is not to happen again.
Haven't got the lease here but I'm pretty sure work on the heating is potential damage to the house, we don't know what kind of cowboy they got out - and thus probably in breach of their lease.
Bottom line is we're seriously out of pocket and probably going to have to get heating checked all over again to make sure it's not damaged.
Not sure it's worth breaking the lease for or the long standing relationship with the agent but at the same time I want to be strong on this. Any thoughts?